Let your students learn creative writing from an award-winning fantasy writing author! Bring me to your school to teach my fabulous Fantasy Writing Workshop. Using tools from my Fantasy Toolbox (pictured right), I teach students about the different elements that make up a fantasy story.
From magic portals to villains to the quest, each element is modeled and explained. Students then put together all the elements to create fantasy stories of their own. The workshop inspires students to write, and it results in many wonderful, imaginative stories.
Visit Dia Calhoun at:
www.myspace.com/diacalhoun
www.myspace.com/readergirlz
One of the first questions people ask me is how did I become a writer. Well, one day when I was a student at Mills College, wandering around the library stacks searching for a book on philosophy, I discovered a dusty little room filled with teen's and children's books. I felt as though I had stumbled across a room filled with old friends. The Island of the Blue Dolphins was there, as well as Blue Willow, The Dark is Rising, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. The sun slanted through the windows and fell across a bench. I forgot about the philosophy book, forgot about my looming midterm exam. I picked up The Witch of Blackbird Pond, sat down on the bench in the sunbeam, and started reading. I read all afternoon.
I knew then that I belonged in that room with those books. That, I think, is the moment I became a writer. Now, I have my own room (still dusty!) filled with teen's and children's books, a refuge where I created my own characters Jonathon, Cerinthe, Rose, Phoenix, Avielle, and Treewing. I hope they, and those who follow them, will become old friends to you when you read my books.
